GRISELDA FINDS LOVE

Even old witches like Griselda have a past....

As my readers may well appreciate, Griselda was an old witch (having passed her 101st birthday without any serious romantic attachment) and she was perfectly happy that way. “Why,” she would ask herself when in one of her frequent morose moods, “why would I need to share a moment of my misery with anyone else?”

This state of affairs was all well and good, but once in the dim past she had flirted, actually flirted, and with a real human being of the male persuasion.

It had happened like this. She had been, whilst still in her forties (which to her mind was almost foetal) in the Crown and Anchor when a young man (Isaac Crone) had collapsed after sampling a concoction created by one of Thomas the Greek's predecessors in the pub trade.

She didn't know why she'd done it (and it was before she had come to grips with her magical powers) but she had saved his life. Sort of. She had pummelled him a bit, slapped his face, shrieked into his ear until he couldn't stand any more, and he had obliged her by opening his eyes.

But that had been a silly number of years ago, and although she had whispered kindly things into his ears like “wake up you daft wuss, it's only toxic,” she had just about forgotten the incident as it gradually morphed into a conglomeration of fractured memories that swum around the edge of her consciousness and that she called “a long time ago”.

So it came as a monumental shock when there came a knock on her door and when she opened it a crusty old man stood there, all sprawling beard, warty cheeks and grizzled head.

“Miss Entwhistle?” he asked in a voice that reminded her, somehow, of something she'd forgotten.

“Who're you?” she asked, her very tone threatening.

“You met me once and saved my life. I'm Isaac Crone,” said the geriatric old creature, spluttering a cough to silence.

“Do I know you?” demanded Griselda - then “by the devil, the young fart who collapsed from alcohol poisoning at the Crown back in … back in a long time ago!”

“Sixty years,” agreed Isaac Crone. “I came … I heard you were still in the land of the living and I came to thank you...”

“It was nothing...” began Griselda, knowing that it really had been little more than nothing.

“You saved my life!” he almost wailed, the cough creaking between his teeth as a novel kind of punctuation. “Since then I've married, had children and then grandchildren, written a book about the sex life of ants and worked like a slave in the college at Brumpton... lecturing on herbs and the healing properties of maggots and the skills of old ladies...”

“A full life, then,” muttered Griselda.

“I've come to ask you out,” concluded the crinkly old man. “I think I owe you that much. I'd like to take you for a drink to the Crown and Anchor where we met about sixty years ago, and where you saved my life, you angel and heart-breaker.”

“Heart-breaker?” she almost squealed.

“Well, you broke my heart when we parted,” he almost wept. “I think I fell in love with you all those years ago.”

“Well, well well,” chortled Griselda, and she paused.

She suddenly saw a panoply of years, a great array of time - her time - with the things that had happened as the years had trundled along. And as she stared at Isaac Crone's warty face a great knot of sympathy welled up inside her. It was totally out of character and filled with something allied to emotion, and it was as tangible as a brick wall.

“Come in and I'll get ready,” she croaked, and for the first time in one hundred and one years she actually invited an unaccompanied male into her home.

Those who have followed Griselda Entwhistle's career with a modicum of interest will recall that one of her spells involved changing herself from the disreputable old crone she really was into an idealised young delight with a wardrobe to match. It was something she had discovered she could do when she'd been a big force in politics and she had resorted to the spell from time to time, when it seemed to be appropriate or when she herself felt in the need of an emotional something she'd never understand.

She performed the transformation less frequently these days because it hurt when she squeezed her creaking carcase into the shape of a twenty-something with smooth skin and eyes that provoked tears in any men who passed her by. Wrinkles can't so easily be smoothed out, even by magic.

“One last time,” she muttered as she made her way into her bedroom, leaving Isaac Crone downstairs with a cup of mulled tea. Then, “by the devil, make me more desirable than a very desirable wench...”

For a moment or two there was nothing, and then there was something. A knot of weirdness suffused her body, both pleasant and unpleasant, as flesh found new shapes and bones straightened out. Within five minutes she felt ready, so she examined her reflection in a mirror - and sighed.

“If I was a young man I'd really fancy me,” she thought, “though perhaps the skirt is a little too long still …”

As she spoke the material of her thin cotton skirt gathered itself and most of her thighs became visible. “A minuscule bit less,” she whispered, and the skirt lowered itself by a millimetre.

“Perfect,” she sighed. “Now my bosom … maybe a tad fuller and certainly a bit more pert...” and a kind of tickle ran through her as her chest expanded and its related undergarments gathered and pushed....

When she was satisfied that everything was spot on she slunk down the stairs, insinuating perfect legs from step to step.

“Isaac,” she called in a deeply throaty voice, “Isaac dearest, I'm ready...”

“I'm coming,” he grunted, and she heard him make his slow old-aged way to the door that separated her living room from the stairs she was standing on.

The door opened, and he gazed at her.

His eyes took in her perfect hair - he could smell its exotic perfumed perfection; they took in her chest and its pertness, every inch his own idea of pure beauty. They took in her slim body and shapely legs, caught a glimpse of her snowy-white knickers peeping below the hem of her skirt... and sighed.

And a sudden explosion occurred within him, a pounding almost audible explosion, as the shock of being so close to physical perfection made his heart beat one last time, and he slithered slowly, so slowly, to the stone floor of Griselda's cottage.

“Sod it,” she muttered sadly. “I thought I might be in there.”

Reviews

[Adam Adams]

Extraordinary work here I come to read this tres eve!!

You transmulate the magic of your own charismatic heart into the Woodland of very magically blown intriguing words. Reality is what you capture in 'tis captivating story! I read many authors or writers here around on café's site but hardly find the one (except some of my fav. ones) who wrote something like this. I just believe, writing is not what's written in words to readers but it should be an art that makes readers wanting more outta it; should "makes" 'em reading; has 'em utter lost into another world & you, my friend, are capable of doing this very well. Beautiful!

Enjoyed reading it completely with all fun, emotions, love, & fascination. You are truly a great story teller. I will be honored to strolling through your work, at least, once or may be, twice or maybe, thrice or may be, countless times, in a day or an eve or maybe, when darkness kissing the skylight--the night. Excellent work, pete!!

[Peter Rogerson]

You are too kind, Adams. This is the sort of little story I enjoy writing and I have posted quite a lot concerning the antics of my favourite disreputable old witch recently.

[Adam Adams]

Pleasure.
Yeah Pete, i see that. I leaf through your majestic world gotten by your manifested art. Oh.. Griselda? ah. Well.. I guess, readers even me too gonna get fall in for that holy bbeauty of that witch!! Liked the things that you don't negotiate to write. Every little to little thing you do pour deep.. deep down in your astound words & that's what makes yah quite talented. Keep writing, Mr. ISSAC!