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  “Oh!” said Caligari.

  “Ha!” said Marv.

  “What did I do wrong?” River asked, standing the poppet up. It tried to escape but Caligari blocked its path with an arm.

  “Well, I’m no rocket-scientist, but I would say that you put the poor kid’s soul in the poppet rather than just binding them.”

  “No shit!” said the moose head. To River it said, “He learned that from watching Sherlock.”

  “Ah!” said the poppet. “A talking moose head!”

  “Ah!” mocked Marv. “A talking piece of fabric!”

  “Can we all just calm down?” Caligari suggested. “I can’t think with all this madness going on!”

  “Go into your mind-palace,” chided the moose head, but Caligari was too busy inspecting the poppet to hear, which was probably for the best.

  The poppet stared back with its green button eyes. “Pack it in! I’m not an aquarium, you know. I have feelings.”

  River still couldn’t believe what was happening. Only a couple of days before she had been a regular eighteen-year-old girl, and now this clusterfuck. It was worse than puberty, but probably not as bad as the impending menopause. “Do you think we can get him out of there?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Caligari, poking the poppet with a long, slender finger. “How are you going to do it?”

  “Thank God for… what? Wait a minute, you can’t do it for me?”

  “I’m no witch,” Caligari said.

  “But you are, are you not, the greatest shaman in the world?”

  “I’m not even in the top hundred,” said Caligari. “Hard to believe, I know, but they’ve got this really strange points system.”

  River wanted to cry; on the counter, the poppet did cry a little, for it had heard the whole thing. “This must be a nightmare,” she said. “I’m going to wake up any second now and feel like such a fool.”

  “Doubt it,” said Caligari. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m here, and if I’m here, and you’re here, then we can’t both be in the same dream.”

  “Pass me that pen,” said Marv. “I’m going to call this one ‘The Case of the Idiot and the Overlapping Dreams.’ The game is afoot!”

  “I can’t spend the rest of my life in this hessian sack body!” the poppet said. “Please, there must be something you can do! I’ve got so much to give! I’m too handsome to have buttons for eyes. All the girls say my human ones look like they’ve been drawn on by a Disney animator.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” River said, with absolutely zero confidence whatsoever.

  “Sorry I couldn’t help more.” Caligari looked deflated, disappointed with his own uselessness, which was odd as he’d had plenty of years to come to terms with it. “The only thing I can suggest is telling that guardian of yours. I suspect she’ll know what to do.”

  River swallowed, though her throat was all at once parched and sore.

  Evelyn was going to kill her.

  “River Everbleed, I am going to bloody kill you!” said Evelyn. For a High Priestess, she didn’t half enjoy the occasional swear. “Do you realise what you’ve done? Other than reducing the number of my Friday afternoon Maths class by one?”

  At the end of the dinner table, Ernie sniffed Vicks from a dirty handkerchief. “Hessian always sets me off,” he said, rubbing at his red and watery eyes as he watched the poppet traversing the stew-pot. “I can cope with suede, and velvet’s okay, but hessian’s my Kryptonite.”

  “Oh, do be quiet, Ernie,” said Evelyn, turning on him like a rabid weasel. “NASA could seal you in a vacuum and you’d still find something to whinge about.” She picked up her fork and steered the poppet away from the edge of the table. “Stay in the middle, Mr. Quinn,” she said. “We wouldn’t want you falling off, now would we?”

  The poppet leapt angrily up onto the salt grinder. “Are you going to put me back in my body, or what?” he asked. “Lord knows what’s going on over at my house right now. I’ll bet my parents are worried sick about me.”

  “There is only one way to get you back into your body,” Evelyn told the poppet, who was trying to figure out how to get mashed potato past its stupid stitched-up mouth. “And that is by feeding you to the body to which you are tied. You will then cease to be a soul in two separate places at the same time, and thusly become just David Quinn again.”

  “Sounds great!” said River, snatching the poppet up from the table. “Let’s do that.”

  “Hang on, young lady,” Evelyn said. “It’s not that simple. There are words to speak—an incantation—and your Jamaican-Latin isn’t going to cut it, I’m afraid.” She stood from the dinner table and proceeded to pull on her coat. “Follow me. Try not to squeeze Dave too tightly. He looks like he’s about to lose a button.”

  RULE FIVE: BE KIND, REWIND

  Evelyn’s locator spell led them to the hospital, and they rushed through the busy corridors, dodging gurneys and staff with all the grace of a pair of Welsh rugby players. They would probably have been thrown out, if only security could have caught up with them.

  “This way!” Evelyn said as they reached a T-junction.

  River didn’t question the High Priestess, who seemed to know where she was going. Perhaps she was using magic to locate Dave’s body; maybe she was using the signs hanging from the ceiling like everyone else.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” River told the poppet in her fist as they ran. “We’ll have you back in your almost perfect body in no time.”

  “Almost perfect?” the poppet said. “Cheers for that. Yeah. Your palm’s sweatier than the inside of a shin pad. You can’t afford to be picky.”

  “Not sure what you see in him,” said Evelyn, tugging River toward another corridor, which looked much the same as the one they had just left. “Ah! Here we are,” said Evelyn. “Intensive Care.”

  “You hear that, Dave? You’re getting intensive care. You’re welcome.” River had decided she no longer liked David Quinn. He was full of himself. She had a good mind to leave him in the poppet. Maybe sell him to the highest bidder as a doggy chew toy.

  “Can I help you?” said the woman behind the glass on reception. She had far too much make-up on for a human being. Stick a bunch of balloons in her hand and she’d make a pretty good children’s entertainer.

  “May I help you,” Evelyn said, breathlessly. “Yes, you may. We’re here to see a Mr. Dave Quinn.”

  “Ah, the boy who fell into a coma during his soup supper,” said the receptionist. River had no clue what that meant, but she’d learned not to ask questions unless absolutely necessary. “And can I ask what you are to him?”

  River could see that Evelyn was trying desperately hard not to turn the receptionist into a farmyard animal. “You may ask what we are to him,” said Evelyn. “This here is his girlfriend, and she’s awfully concerned about the boy. You know what it’s like. Young love, and all that bollocks.”

  The receptionist shook her head.

  “Didn’t think so,” said Evelyn. “Could you let us in anyway?”

  Evelyn and River slipped between the curtains surrounding the bed to discover a man, sound asleep with a newspaper perched upon his face, and a woman filing her nails and humming a joyful little ditty as she did so. Between them lay Dave’s body in a state of unconsciousness and with various beeping machines running to and from his body.

  The woman filing her nails looked up, saw the two newcomers, and said, “Oh! I think you have the wrong bed. This one here is our son.” She sounded far too happy for someone whose offspring lay insensate beside her. River guessed Valium.

  “I’m a friend from uni,” River said, shifting the poppet to her other hand before surreptitiously passing it over to Evelyn.

  “Oh come now!” Evelyn gasped. “You and David are more than just friends, isn’t that right?”

  “Is that so?” said the woman. “David didn’t mention any current love interests.”

  “Just her,” said Evelyn. “Handsome thou
gh he is, I’m afraid I’d break him like a twig.”

  River almost choked on her own stomach acids.

  The woman, Dave’s mother, stood up. “Well, in that case you can have him for an hour. I saw a nice café on the way in. Might pop down for a latte and a slice of red velvet.” She slipped into her coat and went to leave when—

  “Do you mind taking him with you?” Evelyn asked, pointing to the snoozing man on the other side of the bed. “Only, while your son might be far too young for me, I can’t even begin to guess what might happen if you should leave me in the company of a man with such a sensuous snore.”

  Once again, River didn’t know where to put herself. It turned out there wasn’t anywhere, really, such was the restricted nature of the curtained cubicle.

  “Roger!” said the woman. The sleeping man snapped forward; the newspaper jumped from his face and landed somewhere beyond the curtain. He glanced around the cubicle until he located his wife. “Come on,” she said. “And bring your wallet. I left my purse at home.” The man followed the woman out of the cubicle, looking at Evelyn and River, confused, as he passed. As they went, River heard, “Did you know our Dave had a girlfriend?” followed by the grunted response of a sleepy man.

  “I did not know that, no. Always thought he might lick both sides of the stamp, so to speak…”

  Then they were gone.

  “Okay,” said Evelyn. She walked around the bed and placed the poppet down on Dave’s chest. “In you go.”

  The poppet walked forward with slow steps, crawled up Dave’s chin and peered into his slightly-ajar mouth. Turning to Evelyn, it said, “Just crawl on in there, do I?”

  Evelyn nodded. “Make sure you reach the belly,” she said. “Keep on crawling down. If you get stuck in the throat, well, I can’t imagine how miserable the rest of your short life will be.”

  The poppet turned to River, eyebrows furrowed. “I hope you’ve enjoyed this,” it said. “I hope it lived up to your expectations. If you’re going to carry on doing witch stuff, I’d appreciate not being included in any of your little spells.”

  “Just get in the damn mouth,” River said, arms folded across her chest. “And safe journey.”

  “Safe journey,” the poppet muttered as it turned around and pulled Dave’s mouth open. “Safe bloody journey, she says. She turns me into a doll and all I get is a ‘safe journey.’” It crawled in, still mumbling to itself, apparently angry with River for what she had done. As it crawled deeper, Dave’s body began to choke, to gag, and to make odd noises.

  River checked to see if anyone was coming—they weren’t—before moving across to the bed and closing Dave’s mouth. His gullet was moving up and down as the poppet wormed its way forward.

  “This is quite gross to watch,” River said, wincing. “How long’s it going to take?”

  Evelyn shrugged. “Depends on how fast the poppet crawls, I suppose.” She took a seat on the edge of the bed, as did River, and they waited.

  Fifteen minutes later, Dave Quinn’s eyes snapped wide open and he lurched forward on the bed, gasping for breath. For the longest time, he looked confused, and then it must have all returned to him, for he turned to face River and said, “You! You little—”

  That was as far as he got before one of Evelyn’s arms snapped out, her hand grabbing Dave’s head as if it were a dodgeball, and then he fell silent. Beneath Evelyn’s palm, River could only see the whites of Dave’s eyes.

  She was doing something to him.

  After a few seconds, he slumped back down onto his pillow, calm once again.

  “Come on,” Evelyn said, standing from the bed. “He needs to rest.” To Dave, she said, “I expect to see you in class bright and early on Monday morning, Mr. Quinn.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Crowe,” Dave said, his eyes already fluttering closed.

  On their return to the car, River asked Evelyn what she had done back there in the cubicle, to which the she replied, “Always clean up after your misadventures, River Everbleed. Less chance of a sequel that way.”

  RULE SIX: CELEBRATE LIFE

  “Today we’re going to use suffix notation to prove that a · (b × c) = c · (a × b).” Evelyn began to write things upon the blackboard in her usual scruffy way, for she might be as classy as a woman could be before they considered putting one’s face upon stamps and fivers, but she couldn’t write for toffee.

  River glanced across at Dave, who she no longer fancied in the slightest, and he must have sensed her watching him, because he turned and glanced back. He frowned—what the fuck are you looking at?—before turning back to the front.

  River smiled. She concentrated hard upon Dave, not just wanting something to happen but actually believing it would.

  It started off as a gentle cough, nothing more than as if a bit of saliva had gone down the wrong way, but worsened into something more sinister.

  Dave lunged forward in his seat, knocking his notebook to the floor as he fought for air. The rest of the class watched him, all except Evelyn who was busy filling the blackboard with esoteric arithmetical sigils and mathematical gobbledygook.

  River concentrated harder upon her former crush, who had turned a marvellous shade of crimson. Spittle flecked his lips and his eyes were beginning to stream so much that the tears fell from his chin.

  Then it—the thing that had been obstructing his airways—came out, landed upon his desk, rolled sideways across it and dropped down onto the floor.

  A single, slightly bile-covered, green button.

  River decided to let him pass the rest of the poppet naturally.

  Adam Millard is the author of twenty-two novels, twelve novellas, and more than two hundred short stories, which can be found in various collections, magazines, and anthologies. Probably best known for his post-apocalyptic and comedy-horror fiction, Adam also writes fantasy/horror for children, as well as bizarro fiction for several publishers. His work has recently been translated for the German market.

  About the Anthologist

  Trysh Thompson has written just about every form of non-fiction you can think of—everything from news, movie reviews, magazine columns, marketing hype, software manuals, and was even an editorial assistant on a gardening book no one has ever read (The 7-Minute Organic Garden—see, you’ve never heard of it, have you?). To keep from being slowly and torturously bored to death by her day job, she turned to fiction as means of escape—reading it, writing it, and editing it. She also edited the geek romance anthology Covalent Bonds.

  Review this Book

  Don’t forget to leave a review of this book online at Goodreads, Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com or wherever you buy books or discuss them online.

  And turn the page for more books by the authors in this anthology!

  Also By SonofaWitch! Contributors

  FAE

  Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume One

  Meet Robin Goodfellow as you’ve never seen him before, watch damsels in distress rescue themselves, get swept away with the selkies and enjoy tales of hobs, green men, pixies and phookas. One thing is for certain, these are not your grandmother’s fairy tales.

  Fairies have been both mischievous and malignant creatures throughout history. They’ve dwelt in forests, collected teeth or crafted shoes. Fae is full of stories that honor that rich history while exploring new and interesting takes on the fair folk from castles to computer technologies and modern midwifing, the Old World to Indianapolis.

  With an introduction by Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, and all new stories from Sidney Blaylock Jr., Amanda Block, Kari Castor, Beth Cato, Liz Colter, Rhonda Eikamp, Lor Graham, Alexis A. Hunter, L.S. Johnson, Jon Arthur Kitson, Adria Laycraft, Lauren Liebowitz, Christine Morgan, Shannon Phillips, Sara Puls, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.

  CORVIDAE

  Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume Two

  In Corvidae birds are born of blood and pain, trickster ravens live up to their names, magpies take human form, blue ja
ys battle evil forces, and choughs become prisoners of war. These stories will take you to the Great War, research facilities, frozen mountaintops, steam-powered worlds, remote forest homes, and deep into fairy tales. One thing is for certain, after reading this anthology, you’ll never look the same way at the corvid outside your window.

  Featuring works by Jane Yolen, Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney, M.L.D. Curelas, Tim Deal, Megan Engelhardt, Megan Fennell, Adria Laycraft, Kat Otis, Michael S. Pack, Sara Puls, Michael M. Rader, Mark Rapacz, Angela Slatter, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Leslie Van Zwol.

  SCARECROW

  Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume Three

  Within these pages, ancient enemies join together to destroy a mad mommet, a scarecrow who is a crow protects solar fields and stores long-lost family secrets, a woman falls in love with a scarecrow, and another becomes one. Encounter scarecrows made of straw, imagination, memory, and robotics while being spirited to Oz, mythological Japan, other planets, and a neighbor’s back garden. After experiencing this book, you’ll never look at a hay-man the same.

  Featuring all new work by Jane Yolen, Andrew Bud Adams, Laura Blackwood, Amanda Block, Scott Burtness, Amanda C. Davis, Megan Fennell, Kim Goldberg, Katherine Marzinsky, Craig Pay, Sara Puls, Holly Schofield, Virginia Carraway Stark, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.

  FROZEN FAIRY TALES

  Edited By Kate Wolford

  Winter is not coming. Winter is here.

  As unique and beautifully formed as a snowflake, each of these fifteen stories spins a brand new tale or offers a fresh take on an old favorite like Jack Frost, The Snow Queen, or The Frog King. From a drafty castle to a blustery Japanese village, from a snow-packed road to the cozy hearth of a farmhouse, from an empty coffee house in Buffalo, New York, to a cold night outside a university library, these stories fully explore the perils and possibilities of the snow, wind, ice, and bone-chilling cold that traditional fairy tale characters seldom encounter.