Lucille takes me flying over the witch-land. I'm glad we don't have to fly so high or so fast this time. These buildings are weird. Some of them look like they're top heavy and others are shaped like globes or sickle moons. And they're more brightly coloured than buildings back home.

We land by a round purple building. My step-mum claps her green hands together and grins at me. "My best friend Di lives here. You'll like her."

"Zooks Hurrah! Zooks Hurroosh!" Quoth the raven flies down with a loud clapping of wings and alights on the witch's shoulder. "Most witches would find it deucedly odd that you have a mundane son."

"Di is not most witches," says Lucille, and she raps on the purple door with a green fist. Quoth flies off her shoulder and into the air.

The door swings inwards and another green lady runs out and squeals as she throws her arms around Lucille and kisses her on both cheeks. This green lady has bright pink hair. She cups Lucille's face in her hands. "Ohh, it's so good to have you back. At first I was cross with you for flying away and eloping and not telling me, but now I'm just happy to see you again."

Lucille's brown eyes are bright, like she has tears in them. "The love of my life is from a different world. I had to run away to get married."

"Aww, that's so romantic."

Quoth fixes them with a beady little eye. He's standing perched on the stripy letterbox. "So romantic? So rash. It is better to look before you leap, as the saying goes."

Lucille points a green finger at him. "I don't have Quoth's blessing for what that matters. I didn't get my mother's blessing either…" Lucille's voice trembles when she speaks about her mother and she sticks her dark green bottom lip out.

"Oh, come here, you ugly hag." Di pulls Lucille to her and kisses her green cheeks again.

Di drops to her knees and puts her green hands on my shoulders, grinning into my face. "And who's this?" Her face is really really bright green, like Lucille's. It looks weird with her pink hair.

"My stepson, Sammy," says Lucille grinning. "I love him to bits. Isn't he a little homunculus?"

"What is a homunculus?" I ask.

"That's just the odd way witches talk," snaps Quoth. "They call each other 'ugly hag' and think it's charming."

Di's blue eyes crinkle in a smile and her green cheeks dimple. Her chin is pointier than Lucille's. "Ohh, aren't you adorable? Your little face... Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would have thrown you a party. Would you like that? I've never thrown one for a little human before."

"Y-Yes," I reply.

"Hurrah! Any human boy would want to party with weird green women," grumbles Quoth.

"Keep your beak sealed," says Di sharply. "I can tell already the mite is the life of any party."

Lucille rubs her temples with her green hands. "Sorry… Quoth won't ever shut up."

I follow the witches through the door and into a round, stone room with a little pond inside. A green lizard leaps out of the water with a splash. It's a little crocodile. It bites Di's arm! But its got no teeth. Di laughs. "Toothless is frisky today." She flashes a grin at me. "My familiar." I nod.

Di opens a case which has all these weirdly shaped bottles. Some are round, some are square, some are diamonds and they're all different colours. She rubs her green nose. "There's a lot to deliver. And we need a sample of purple mushroom from the fungus grove."

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00O00

Lucille decides to deliver the diamond shaped bottles and to get that purple mushroom. She's taking me with her. A quick broom ride later and we're by a river of silvery water. Quoth is nowhere to be seen. There's a yellow path near us. I can see mushrooms everywhere, all the colours of the rainbow. Some small, some big and some ginormous!

"Are any of these poison, Lucille?" I ask.

"No, darling." She points a green finger at a tiny, yellow mushroom. "That's a buttershroom. I always thought it was like a buttercup."

"Can I try something?" I ask. She smiles and sits down white I hold a buttershroom near her chin. It makes a patch of yellow light spread over her green face. Like a buttercup does when you hold it up to your friend's chin. "See? That's pretty. Yellow light on your chin. Like magic."

She touches my cheek with her cold, green fingers. "You're so clever, Sammy. But watch, I have a trick too."

She picks up a huge white mushroom and purses her dark green lips, then breathes on it. The mushroom writhes in her green fingers and squirts out a cloud of dust.

"Spores," says Lucille.

The spores land on the yellow path near us and turn into tiny, baby mushrooms which crowd together so they form an arrow and then run away down the path.

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I start to go after them, but they run away faster. I turn back to the witch. "That's really clever. Can you catch them."

She flicks her long red plait over her shoulder. "I dunno, they went awfully fast."

"Not that fast." I put my hands on my hips. "Can't you catch me?"

She wrinkles her shiny green nose at me. "Can't hear you."

I go close to her. "I said, can't you catch me?"

She flings her arms around me. "Gotcha!" She kisses me on the forehead as I giggle. "There's no escape from a witch," she whispers in my ear, her breath tickling.

We're so silly. We rub our noses together and she hugs me tightly. Her cold cheek touches mine. "My little imp."

"Why'm I your little imp?"

Her weird smell is really strong. She strokes my hair. "Cos I wish you really were mine. I don't wanna lose you."

"Lose me? You just caught me."

"That I did. But there are things I can't do."

"You can do magic."

"Look at me, dearest."

She sounds serious. I look at her face. I've always thought that Lucille is a weird yellowy green. Not like grass. She's the same colour as bright green candy. I giggle at her.

She smiles back. Her lips are dark green. More like chives. "Magic can solve some problems, but not all… I'm a witch and I should know. I was never that great at magic, anyway. It's the most gifted of us who are pioneers in the art of potion making. They can do awesome things." Her brown eyes are shining as she talks about these potion making pioneers. She opens her case and takes out a bottle that's sort of shaped like a leaf. "This one's brand new. I'd sooo like to be able to test it. The witches with the most skill extract the weirdest magic from mushrooms." Her grin lights up her green face. "Weirdest is best."

Sounds amazing. "You must be able to do something weird, Lucille?"

She taps her green nose twice. "I can. But you must promise never to try this yourself, or mess around with mushrooms in any way at all, without my permission." She's giving me that serious look, the one where she looks right into my eyes.

"Yes, alright."

"Then watch this." She picks a pink mushroom and puts it in her mouth. Her green cheeks bulge, and then she sticks out her tongue. The mushroom stained her green tongue pink!

"I'f gotta pink ton'" she lisps, her tongue still out.

I laugh. "Just like mine."

She touches my cheek with a cold, green hand. "You said it, darling. Don't we look like mother and son now?"

Suddenly there's a terrible hiss and I give a start. Lucille grabs me and looks round wildly. A shadow falls over us. It's a woman with black robes looming over us! Urgh! Her skin looks like it's starting to peel off… and she has scales underneath? How? She's glaring at us without blinking. She's baring her teeth and they look pointed, like a crocodile's teeth and with a red tinge. There are knives attached to her fingers…

"Foul witch, feeble human, now I've found you, you will die by my poisoned blades," she hisses.

Lucille grabs Woody the broom while keeping one arm tight around me, and as the hissing woman lunges at us with her knives, the witch bats them aside with her broomstick.

Knife woman lets out a weird, drawn out hiss. "You cannot stand against a dragon, green vermin. The blades will tear into your flesh and the venom burn slowly." A pair of bat-like wings unfurl from her shoulders… so… she's a dragon in disguise. Lucille told me about them. With a swish of her wings, she rises into the air, brandishing her knives… But then there's a flash of white and another dragon-woman appears and grabs her arm. This one is dressed in white robes. She has a frozen smile.

"It's you, Peace Dragon," hissed the dragon in black robes.

"It isn't nice to kill anyone with those barbaric weapons, War Dragon. You should use this." Peace Dragon holds up a syringe. "You have to send them off peacefully."

"I intend to make them suffer!"

"No… peacefully."

While they argue, Lucille seizes the leaf shaped potion bottle and puts it to her lips. There's a flash, and vines sprout from my stepmother's arms, her arms grow and become hard, like wood. She's growing huge and it all happens in an instant. My stepmother's turned into a massive, tree woman! Her green face is surrounded with a cloud of leaves. There are vines all over her. She has one of her branches wrapped around me. With her other branch, she wallops the dragons, making them hiss and stumble backwards.

"Extraordinary!" gasps Peace Dragon.

"Monster! Green vermin!" hisses War Dragon. "Your tricks will not avail you when the Dragon King Returns. He will! I've torn your accursed stone of witchery from its core and he will return to lay waste to this unholy place with his cleansing fire."

"Back! Get back! Get away from my boy! You won't dare lay a finger or a claw on him." Lucille's voice sounds different now that she's a tree. It's rumbling instead of shrill.

She swipes at the dragons again and they flutter back like massive bats.

Peace Dragon extends her wings. "Leave it. We're worsted." She takes off and flies away over the mushroom fields.

"I'll get you yet, witch," growls War Dragon and she spread her wings and flies away too.

I put my arms around my stepmother's trunk and look at her shiny green face in the middle of the vines. It's reassuring that her eyes are still the same. Lucille has kind eyes. My heart's beating fast. Right now, it's just so good to be able to hold onto her. I feel safe in her… branches? Can't really say 'in her arms' right this second. "Lucille, I…" My throat feels dry.

"Everything's alright, Sammy," she rumbles.

"You're the weirdest step-mother ever," I say in a rush. "But I – I love you."

I feel her vines wrapping themselves around me and getting in my hair. They even wrap around my wrists.

"Awww, you're so sweet. You say the nicest things. I love you too. You're my perfect little mannikin. I never wanna let you go."

I notice out of the corner of my eye, that Elvis the rat has scampered up her trunk and is on her other branch.

"Hurroosh!" I hear the raven's croaking voice. Quoth lands on the other branch as well. "Gadzooks, for I am a genius," he caws. "I recognise my Mistress whatever form she takes. And what a change for the better this is. I never had cause to call her beautiful before, but now..."

"Watch it, featherbrain," rumbles Lucille.

"This is an astonishing feat of magic," rasps Quoth. "Has my Mistress' skill improved exponentially?"

"This is cos of one of the potions I was carrying," says the witch. "It wears off. I hope it does. Why isn't it wearing off?"

I reach up and touch her cheek. Her face does feel different. Sort of like rubber. "Don't be sad." Her green lips twitch to form a smile.

"I can make a nest, here," says Quoth.

Lucille glares. "You will do no such thing. Listen, I have just learned that the Crystal Moon has been stolen – by dragons. Quoth, go and check out the Moon Tower. I'm afraid our nightmare will come true. The Dragon King will return."

Quoth turns his head to fix Lucille's face with a beady eye. "You really think a bogey from a dusty old children's tale rears its ugly head?"

At that moment the sun goes dim like it's gone behind a cloud. Lucille gasps. I feel a cold, prickly feeling down my neck and I turn away from my stepmother to look at the horizon. In the distance there's dark clouds and the sound of thunder, and now there's something else. A pair of yellow eyes with slits for pupils like a snake…