A week later, Red huffed a short breath as she headed back into the forest. She had prepared as well as she could. Her small rucksack held a good deal of bread and jam, an extra set of clothes, and a pair of boots. She had tucked in the laces of her shoes and made sure she had stretched and exercised enough to not suffer any unfortunately-timed cramps.

Red was ready.

The forest seemed ready for her too. Silence hung heavy with anticipation. Red’s skin crawled. She was tempted to jump in between the trees and tear apart whatever strange veil the forest had constructed. Red wanted to get this over with.

But she pushed aside the impulse. Later. First, she would visit Great ma. She was the master of herself.

The tension didn’t relieve, however. It didn’t care for the equanimity Red was trying to settle over herself. She kept her wand at the ready, expecting a horde of Crones to appear at the edge of the path. That nothing materialized only set her even more on edge.

And when she finally reached Great ma’s hut, she momentarily forgot all about her intended journey.

Things were a mess. The garden that had been broken before was now trampled and ruined utterly, like a small army marching through a farmland. Great ma’s windows were shattered. Through it, Red caught sight of even further disarray within the hut. Broken furniture, paintings on the ground, and more besides.

“Great ma!” Red rushed forward, charging through the doorway with her wand out.

“Dear!”

Great ma looked up from where she was sitting on a stool. She looked extra old then, bent over like an aged tree, face rising so slowly out of her mittened hands that Red was surprised to not hear any creaks arising from her ancestor’s neck.

“Great ma…” Red looked around, heart falling the more her eyes latched onto everything that was broken and destroyed. “What happened? It wasn’t—” She swallowed. “It wasn’t the Crones, was it?”

Great ma’s face seemed to grow several more wrinkles just then. The travesty made her look almost unrecognizable. Her face appeared reduced, the defining features all repressed. The cream she normally applied was gone, her skin looking more grey than healthy green. Almost leathery. It was as if her remaining vitality had been taken too.

“They came only an hour or two ago,” she said. “I don’t know where from, or how, or… or why altogether like that.”

With stops and starts, Great ma explained more of what had happened. The Crones had come in force, charging through her already-ruined garden and throwing themselves in through the window and the door. Then they had ransacked the whole place like a gang of raiders before making a hasty retreat.

Red slowly shook her head. She didn’t pay attention to her hood falling off. “Do you know what they took?”

“So much.” Great ma buried her face in her hands again. “They took so much…”

Not exactly a helpful answer, but Red’s heart squeezed tightly in her chest. She almost wanted to cry. Anger stopped her. A slowly-building rage that threatened to boil over the lip of the cauldron of her mind.

Late. Red was late. If only she had been here before. If only she had struck out and taken care of the Crones before.

She decided to start cleaning up the place. Great ma was obviously in no state to do so. Damage mitigation was better than doing nothing at all.

At the same time, Red could start taking inventory. As she cleaned, she noted the things that seemed missing. The things that had been taken. The list of things that Red eventually found were gone was… surprising.

One was a painting. In fact, it was one of those rudimentary drawings Red herself had done. Why would the Crones take that when there were so many better ones on the walls? Though, why they would take any painting at all was anyone’s guess.

Quite a few of the vials and glass bottles on Great ma’s herb and medicine cabinet were missing too. Red was never allowed to go through those. She tried to respect Great ma’s privacy and not inspect the containers. But as she put them all back in place, at least the ones that weren’t broken, she couldn’t help but notice quite a few were missing.

The same went for several of Great ma’s books and her cooking utensils. Those cursed Crones had even taken the baking tray. Insane.

Great ma eventually came up to Red while she was sweeping the floor. She had regained some measure of control over herself. Her cap was back over her greying hair, her face was masked with cream again, and she stood straight once more. “Enough, dear. You can go and rest for now.”

Red shook her head. She continued sweeping. “It’s fine, Great ma. You go and get some sleep. I’ll make you some tea.”

“I think they took the kettle too.”

“Oh.” Red paused momentarily, feeling too tired all of a sudden to even feel angry about the kettle. “I must have missed that.”

Great ma gently took her by the arm and led her to the chairs. Red didn’t resist. At least the seats weren’t missing too.

“We need to get your things back, Great ma,” Red said. Great ma offered her some biscuits from a tin and Red took a bite. Effort had made her hungry, and hunger made the biscuits delicious. “We have to make those Crones pay.”

Great ma sighed. “I must take care of my home, dear. You’ve done well to clean things, for which I need to thank you properly, but I’d like to get it back to normal again.”

“What normal, Great ma? Those Crones aren’t going to let you get back to any sort of normal when they’re still out there. What if they come back? What’s stopping them from doing this again?”

“Please, dear, I am quite tired.”

Red’s face fell. “I’m sorry, Great ma.”

Great ma simply pulled Red closer and gave her a little hug. Red returned it.

There was a lot Red wanted to ask right then, but she understood that her old ancestor was in no mood to chat. This wasn’t the time for explanations or postulations. Red would need to figure things out on her own.

She would need to carry out her endeavour against the Crones on her own too.

Red didn’t leave immediately, though. She waited, even after Great ma left her and began to busy herself around her hut. It would be rude to go just then. What if Great ma needed help with anything?

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But it turned out Great ma herself just wanted Red gone.

“Here, dear.” Great ma shuffled over and handed Red one of the vials from her cabinet. It had small thimbleful of light blue liquid. “Give this to your mother, please.”

Red placed it carefully inside her cloak. “What is it, Great ma?”

“Just a little something to help her as she ages. One day, when you’re older, you might find some use for it too. It keeps you healthier, lets your skin and bones last longer, keeps up your appetite. Makes you feel younger.”

“Oh! That’s fantastic. But—” Red looked up. “Wouldn’t you need it more?”

Great ma smiled. It looked more like a sad smile than a happy one. “Oh, I’ve already made good use of it. It’s why I feel so hale and young.” Her laughter was edged. Forced. “Now run along, dear. Hopefully, we’ll have a nice time next week.”

“Don’t worry, Great ma,” Red said. “I’ll make sure we’ll do.”

Great ma frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to make sure the Crones don’t bother you ever again.”

Great ma’s expression changed rapidly. Where she had regained a sort of fake cheer for Red’s sake, now she appeared sad again. A sadness that gave way to a grim seriousness. “I forbid it, dear.”

“You… forbid it, Great ma?” Red couldn’t recall the last time she had been forbidden against anything by Great ma.

“Yes. You are not to go after the Crones. Please, just return home. You need to tell your mother what has happened here, after all. It’s important that she knows. “

“But Great ma, the Crones took so much! We need to get them back. We—”

“Please, dear.” Great ma reached down and grasped Red’s hands in between her mittens. “You are still a child. Don’t worry so much. Things will be okay. They will follow the natural course.” She looked away for a moment. “Something I need to remember as well.” Then she turned back to Red. “But you must promise me that you will not endanger yourself.”

Red looked into Great ma’s big, bulbous eyes that seemed much reduced in their bulbosity and sighed. “I promise I won’t put myself in needless danger.”

With a happy sniff, Great ma let her go and ushered her out of the hut.

Red stood there for a moment, at the edge of where normalcy had been torn apart. She wasn’t merely at the threshold between her Great ma’s hut and the forest. This was the threshold of adventure. Of making things right.

Tightening her grip on her wand, Red headed out.

***

Halfway between the hut and the exit of the forest, Red turned and headed into the woods. Red wasn’t here to fight any old Crone she came across. She couldn’t. Her spells were only for distractions, and she wasn’t really the violent sort anyway.

Her goal was to find their source. They came from some place. They had to stay somewhere, some location where they had taken everything they had stolen from Great ma’s hut.

Red was going to find that place, and Red was going to show them what happened when one’s home was invaded.

It was strange that all the while, she had not met one Crone that day.

That was, until she went deep into the trees.

Red crept carefully under the shade. Dappled light speckled her red hood. She had to take care not to trip on any of the roots or many any unnecessary noise. Her sense of smell didn’t pick up anything untoward. Not for a while, at least.

But after half an hour of creeping, the odour of the Crones finally made itself known. Red was able to orient herself to follow the direction the smell was coming from.

It wasn’t long before the first Crone came into view.

Red raised her wand. She wanted to ask some questions, but there was no point to that. It wasn’t like she could understand the gibberish.

So instead, she summoned the right distraction. “I call upon the olde delights that mine forefathers and foremothers enjoyed. Dough!”

The Crone attacked the summoned blob with wild ferocity. While the hag was busy smacking the dough with the rolling pin, Red marked the direction she had to go, tracing her way past the spot the Crone had appeared.

More of them appeared before long. More withered hags with their cruel mouths, with their evil mutterings, with their deadly implements.

Red continued summoning up distractions to clear her path forward.

“Lawn!”

“Yarn!”

“Stairway!”

The further she went, the more Red was forced to use more and more of her spells. She had more or less littered the forest with all the odds and ends that kept the Crones busy for whatever reason.

Whatever even happened to them after they were done? Red wished she was in any sort of position to find out.

She was too distracted by the way the forest was changing to entertain idle thoughts. The trees were thinning, as though she was reaching the end. Or she was reaching a clearing.

Red stopped. She had come to another hut.

Though, this was no hut she had ever seen before. There was something weird about it. Strange.

It didn’t follow any architectural style Red had ever seen. It was all stony, and pointed, and hard. Smoke seeped out of a spire at the back of the building. The windows were small, shuttered. There was no garden. Nothing to make it look like anyone enjoyed living here.

Strange smells came from the house too. Odours that made Red think of tilled earth, of compost, of strange concoctions.

Red swallowed. She could certainly believe the Crones all lived within a house like this. All ugly and evil-looking, like them.

Although, with the number of Crones she had seen, it would be cramped inside.

But, come to think of it, there were none of them nearby. Red looked around, relied on her other senses like hearing and smell too. No Crones anywhere nearby. Had the ones she had distracted earlier come from here in the first place? She couldn’t be sure.

Of course, it could be that there was a whole horde of the hags inside the stone house. Only one way to find out.

Keeping her every sense on high-alert, Red stepped forward.

“Well, well, well.”

Red twisted around, heart thumping in her chest. She clutched her hood and her wand tighter, pointing the latter at the approaching figure. Then she froze. Was that… a Crone?

A Crone that could talk?

She looked different from the others too. This hag was larger than the others, standing half again as tall as Great ma. Instead of a flannel sack, she wore a heavy, shaggy cloak of what looked like some kind of fur. The colour reminded Red of wolf’s fur. The hag’s face was as twisted, dry, and evil-looking as the others of her kind.

But worst of all, the hag had no implement or weapon at all. Her hands were bare, sporting nothing but nails that were almost as long and curved as that of a goblin’s.

Red’s mind was blanking on what exactly she was supposed to summon. What was the correct spell for a Crone that possessed no weapon? There had to be something, but she recalled no lessons for a case like this.

“What’s wrong, little goblin?” the Crone asked. Her voice was like wood cracking apart, the grin like the wound of an axe against a trunk. “You seem lost. Were you looking for something?”

“How—” Red’s voice quavered. She mastered herself, stood straighter. “How do you know how to talk?”

The Crone laughed. “The same way you do, little goblin.”

That made no sense to Red. But she realized there was no point in talking. Just because this Crone could speak the same way Red could didn’t mean that she was going to learn anything important. What she had to do was get to the stone house.

“I call upon the olde delights that mine forefathers and foremothers enjoyed,” Red said, aiming her wand at the Crone’s torso. “Dough!”

A clump of dough appeared and struck the Crone in the chest. Then it bounced off and landed on the ground. The hag spared it one withering look, then continued walking toward Red.

She muttered in annoyance. Well, if dough wasn’t going to work, one of the others had to. “I call upon the olde land that mine forefathers and foremothers claimed. Lawn!”

The Crone walked over the new grass as though it wasn’t even there.

“I call upon the olde cloth that mine forefathers and foremothers shaped,” Red said, unable to keep the note of desperation from her voice. “Yarn!”

Nothing. The Crone ignored it too.

“Stairway!”

“Wind!”

“Soap!”

None of them had any effect.

“Who—what are you?” Red asked, stepping back all the while that the Crone approached.

“Who, me?” The Crone laughed, like a jagged saw. “I am simply the one who takes care of everything. And now, it looks like I need to take care of you too.”

“N-no! No. Stay away.”

Gripped by fear, Red twisted and ran and ran and… found herself making no progress at all. Her feet were beating on thin air. The Crone! The Crone had reached her and had raised her up so she couldn’t get away.

“Let go of me!” she screamed.

“Now, now,” the Crone said, tutting. “You must let me take care of you.”

Red tried swinging her arms behind her, tried yelling out more spells, but they had no effect on the hag.

And then she was being hauled away.

Red tried resisting, screamed out all the while, struggled so hard that she felt she would be jumping out of her skin at this rate. But in the end, all she achieved was exhausting herself. She could muster no effort as she was thrown into a gloomy, musty room at the back of the stone house.

“Rest here awhile,” the Crone said, her form shadowy thanks to the light streaming in from the outside. It shimmered and swam, turning strange. Familiar. Then the door slammed close, leaving Red in darkness. “I’ll be back for you later, dear.”