Like father, like daughter?

The two walked towards her bed. "The sleeping blanket worked, so?" the witch asked.

Sofia thought for a moment. "Yes, now that you mention it. How is it that I fell asleep so quickly?"

"The sleeping blanket makes you go to sleep immediately. We also have normal blankets, but they only keep you warm. That's not much use when you want to go to sleep," the girl said.

Sofia squeezed her arm to check once more that she was not just dreaming. It stung, so that was not the case. A sleeping blanket? With which you fell asleep immediately? Where was it?

The girl gave her a hand. "Can you get up?" she asked. Sofia could, she was no longer bothered by whatever that witch had done to her.

The girl stretched out, making her just a little taller than Sofia. It only struck her now that they were probably the same age.

"Can we take her?" she shouted, pointing her finger at Sofia's head.

The nurse, who had by now walked to the other side of the room, turned around, doing something with her hands.

"What is she doing, Eba?" the witch asked the girl whose name was apparently Eba.

Eba looked at the nurse with narrowed eyes. "She sticks out her thumb, you can get out of here."

While Eba walked to the door, the witch walked toward Sofia. Now that Sofia had been made a lot smaller, the witch towered over her. "Gnomes have a much better view than you and me," she explained.

"What are you then?" asked Sofia. "The nurse said you were a witch, but aren't you a gnome in addition to that?"

The witch shook her head. "Just because I'm smaller than you were when you were big doesn't mean I'm also a gnome," she said. "Witches come in all shapes and sizes, and since I'm almost as small as these creatures here, I come in handy in this place. Do you know Mount Everest?" she asked.

Sofia nodded, she did know it.

"That's a friend of mine," the witch said.

Sofia started to chuckle, thinking she was joking.

"Did you seriously think that mountains arise like that by themselves?" the witch began to laugh. "You still have so much to learn," she said, going after Eba.

Stolen novel; please report.

A little later, the three of them were back in the room where they had been before. The witch had been enthusiastically explaining how the reduction process worked for half an hour, while Sofia tried to pay attention but didn't understand a thing, and Eba looked bored out of her eyes. She had probably heard the story a thousand times before.

"And so all your cells are made smaller, and you are on the same eye level as us. Or yes, like them, I have to bend down if I want to look at you now," she finished her story.

"And how does that stomach ache come about?" asked Sofia.

"That can have several causes," the witch began, while Eba desperately threw her hands in the air. "We just don't know which one yet. It could be that it hurts when your cells are made smaller - that can still hurt - or that your organs are pressed together. I think the most likely cause is because that knife is in your body now."

Sofia almost fell off her chair. "What?" she asked in surprise.

Eba started laughing. "They all fall for it," she said.

The witch chuckled, as she sat down and joined Sofia and Eba in her chair.

"Good, you're a human. We do have to deal with people invading our cave quite often, but by the sound of you, you're the most stupid," she said.

Sofia frowned. "How so?" she asked irritably.

"Not that you're stupid," Eba said quickly. "Sorry, she can still come across as boorish. She means that the other people usually already understand a little bit about what's going on, you don't understand anything about it."

Sofia wanted to snarl something back, not understanding that Eba was trying to lighten the mood a bit, but the witch was ahead of her.

"Well, let's start at the beginning. What's your name, anyway?" she asked.

Only now did Sofia realise that she had indeed not yet said her name at all. "Sofia," she said.

The witch quietly started to write something down, when she suddenly shot up. "Sofia?" she asked nervously, "How do you write that?"

Sofia didn't understand why the witch was acting so strange, but it wasn't the first time someone had asked how she wrote her name. It was always a question of whether it should be with an "f" or a "ph". "With an "f"," she replied.

Eba swallowed. "Well, tell me about your family situation. What are your parents like?" she asked.

Sofia thought that was a strange question, but she answered anyway. "My mother is very nice and caring, but she has to do it on her own, because I don't have a father."

The witch's pale red colour seemed to grow even redder. "Did your mother ever say what your father's name was?" she asked.

Sofia thought for a moment, she had indeed told her that once. "Luci... Lucien, I think," she finally said.

Meanwhile, Eba stared at her with an open mouth. It was silent for a while.

"Can someone here tell me what's going on?" asked Sofia finally, irritated.

"You are probably the daughter of our king," said the witch.

Eba nodded. "And unfortunately for you, it's probably the evilest king we've ever had."

"He was also once a human, who was turned into a gnome," the witch continued. "And then he became king of our kingdom. At first, he seemed to be several times better than his predecessor, which was already good, but in the end, his human roots killed him. He became a dictator," she finished her sentence, after which it became silent again.

Finally, Eba started talking again. "He turned his wife and daughter into humans, and he sent them away so that they could not be used as tools against him."

The witch looked at Sofia in her eyes. "And now his daughter is back."