258. The Rag Hag Mill Play

258. The Rag Hag Mill Play

By the time we got to the Rag Hag Mill we were fifty-three strong, including Moth’s moths and Cobweb’s spider. We were more than there was supposed to be room for, for the museum was supposed to hold no more than thirty-five. But since the Leafies are very small, we supposed ten could share a seat, and as for the pets, well, these could sit with their own pets, which is what fairy animals call what others might call their owners. Yes, we are our pets’ pets.

The mill was as dusty as always. Once in a while a breeze lifted some of the dust from the mound of flour next to the wheel, but it would drop that down again. The mound looked smaller to me than it had, and so it was, for reasons I would learn about later. Against  the door of the mill there stood a billboard, not a profesional one, but one that looked like it had been made by small children to announce a school activity.

“You are sadly welcomed by the curators of this museum to the Monstruous Mill of the Malevolent Rag Hag. You’ll have to pay a faypound each. But remember, the visit includes a truly thrilling show.”

“Well, at least it doesn’t look like this has been organized by friends of the reduced hag,” said Dad. “They wouldn’t be calling her malevolent, would they?”

“One never knows,” I said, because I am the most mistrustful person ever.

“Where is the ticket office?” Dad asked the voice.

“I am the ticket officer. I am invisible. The hag was invisible and therefore so am I,” the voice explained to us.

“What a silly idea!” sighed Dad. “Well, treat me properly because I am about to buy fifty-three tickets. This is no mean sum. It’s more than you can legally sell, so show some gratitude. And how should I pay you?”

“In solid gold faypounds.”

“Yay, but how do I hand them to you?”

“Dump them in the basket.”

“What basket?”

“The invisible one.”

“What is this? Some kind of a joke? Look, there are quite a few people gathered here. If one or another freaks out, you are going to have a problem here, buddy.”

They argued for a while, Dad and the voice, because fairies like to do a lot of endless arguing, and then the voice finally said, “Okay, you win. I’ll go fetch my hood. But know that you have busted the magic of this place.”

“That would serve you right,” said Dad, “What magic? This is no way to receive well-intentioned spectators.”

And in a few minutes, a black cloak with a hood, of the sort Death wears, came floating out of the mill. Since the cloak was moving, it was to be supposed that the voice we had been speaking with was now clothed in it. It showed its hands, and we were able to see them,  for they wore skeleton gloves. These hands also bore a now visible basket.

“Here,” said Dad, dropping the coins into the basket, “fifty-three fay-pounds of the solidest gold.”

“Couldn’t you do us a bit better? Could you make this sixty pounds, Mr. Oberon? Come on, give me sixty.”

“Why would I want to do that?” asked my father laughing.

“Man, you’ve already given me fifty-three and I hear your pockets still jingling. Sixty is a prettier sum. You like pretty things don’t you?”

“Look, just to cut the arguing, here you go,” and Dad cast seven more coins into the basket. “But move it, will you? There are people who are tired of standing out here waiting.”

“Ho, ho, ho! The public wants to go!” sang the Leafies.

“No! Don’t leave now! I’ve just forked out the ticket dough!”  said Dad to the Leafies.

“Gimme that basket!” shouted Thistle. She tore the basket right out of the floating robe’s skeletal hands and recovered the seven extra coins Dad had agreed to cast into it. After putting those in her pocket, she added,  “And I mean to keep the rest until we see that this here show is no scheme to bilk my dad out of his money.”

Someone or something opened the door of the mill and we all marched inside. There were no seats within. But there was something like sheets pretending to be curtains hanging from a clothesline at the other end of the room. And behind those, a sort of platform. Suddenly, a different voice began to shout.

 “Ah, distinguished public! You find yourselves in the horrible Mill of the Hag of the Rag! Dreadful things have happened here. And now, for your enjoyment, we will recreate these bloodcurling events.”

The curtains drew apart and the voice continued booming.

“See the mill, see the hag, who is invisible, and is before you, engaged in maturing her felonious plans to pulverize any unwary passerby!”

There was absolutely nothing to be seen on that supposed stage, save for another sheet that was – I guessed - the background.

“Who shall I pulverize today?” said the again totally invisible ticket-seller, trying to sound grating and shrill. “Who will be my ill-starred victim?”

“But,” said the second voice we had heard, “what the hag don’t know is that as she dusts away in her mill, today is the day of reckoning. Today her days of pulverizing kind and honest folks are about to be over.”

In a burst of light, a figure appeared on the stage, dressed like a fairytale prince, with a short blue cloak, a blue velvet mask covering the face and blue tights with a hole right beneath one knee. On his shoulder the prince carried a plush doll in the form of an orange and white and black tiger.

“Beloved, oh, my so beloved lady, so beautiful and golden that the sun envíes you,” said the prince to the toy tiger on his shoulder, “I dedícate the feat I will now perform to you, so that all the plebians and local hicks will love you as I do. I will liberate them from the curse of the Rag Hag. But first, where are my pages?”

The prince turned round so we couldn’t see his mouth, which was covered by a mask and that therefore we couldn’t see anyway. Two little voices squeaked, “Here we be, sir. Fallen into a trap the hag has set on the floor.”

And at that very moment, Catacrack! Crash! One fourth of the audience fell through the hole into which my brother Ati had fallen.

“¡**** ****! Didn’t I tell you to cover that hole with boards?” the ticket-seller’s voice hollered at the prince in a veritable rage.

“I did that. Why have they moved? Was I supposed to nail them?” asked the prince.

At least the hole was far less full of flour than it had been when Ati fell into it, and we were able to draw our friends out of it quite easily. There were screams, curses and insults, but I won’t dwell on that. A show must go on and this one did. My supposed brother, that is, the supposed prince, said to the invisible pages, “Look and learn from a profesional hero! I am Attor! The Unyielding! The Unequaled! The Undefeatable! The Unflexible and the Noncombustible! And for the glory of my dame, I will demostrate how cocksure I am by pulling at the lethal rag more effectively than anyone else ever could.”

A wagging rag appeared onstage. The prince walked up to it and gave one pull with effortless ease and the rag was his. Like that. No problem whatsoever.

“Right. Now, listen to me,  you pages in the hole! ¿Have you seen how easy that was for me to do? That is how easy impossible tasks are when you are an outstanding guy like I am,” said the prince that was supposed to be my brother Ati.

“Please, sweet sir, don’t leave us here, forlorn and forgotten!” cried the little voices of the pages who were probably supposed to be Alpin and me.

“Certainly not! I’m a gentleman! How could I do that? I protect the weak. Don’t anyone doubt my gallantry!”

 The prince stepped down from the platform and went to the hole in the floor and jumped inside it. After a few seconds, his head popped out and he said, “You know what? Chum, they aren’t here!”

“If you mean these,” said my sister Heather showing him a couple of flour-covered dolls, “I took them out of there when we rescued our companions.”

“Thaaaank  youuuu, doll!” said the prince, crawling out of the hole. He took the dolls and returned to the stage.  Once there he began to say, “And we lived happily ever-”  

 “No!” the ticket-seller’s voice reproached him. “You have to swat the hag first!”

“Ah, right! Well, yes, of course I will do that. How could it be otherwise? Shut your eyes, my stunning lady,” said the prince, turning to the plush tiger. “A dame as delicate as you are must not see something as awful but as justly deserved as I am about to inflict in your name.”

And the prince drew out his sword saying that he was about to behead the hag.

“No! That’s not it!” shouted the other voice. “You have to swat her with the rag.”

The prince was not convinced.

He turned to the audience and asked, “Isn’t it like more spectacular if I cut off her head with my sword? How about if we vote on this?”

“TAKE THAT RAG AND SLUG ME!” hollered the ticket-seller in obvious desperation.

“Okay. I’ll do that!" said thje prince, pretending to recoil. "No need to hit the roof! Let me see. Where is the blooming rag?”

“Behind you!” contributed those of the public that were up front in the first row.

“Oh, thank ye,” said the prince. He bent over exactly the way one shouldn’t when on a stage.

“Never refuse a bender! Especially when it’s tender!” howled some members of  the audience.

With the rag in his hand, the prince began to look everywhere about him. “But… where are you, guy? How can I hit you if I don’t see you?”

“Swat at large, fool!” shouted Thistle. “One can’t see anything, anyway.”

“Ah. Right,” said the prince. He asked the plush tiger to shut its eyes once more and struck at the air yelling, “Take that! And that! And that! And this too!” And then he turned to Thistle and asked “Need I strike more?”

“That will do nicely,” said Dad, before Thistle could answer.

“What a cool guy!” breathed the pair of flour-covered little dolls that were supposed to be Alpin and me.

“But, Arley,” protested Alpin, “it was you who whacked the hag!”

And I, who have experience with this type of situations thanks to the Botolph Affair, said, “That’s how history is written. I don’t mind, but I’m sorry for Cathsheba.”

“Reduced to ashes because the prince popped her like a cork is the evil hag!  Just like she once reduced her unfortunate victims!”

And now, yes. Now came the real and awful surprise. I have said there was a third sheet hanging in the background of the stage. The invisible voice drew this sheet aside. What looked like a table covered with a wilted, faded quilt appeared. The ticket-seller tore the quilt off. We could now see the table clearly. And on it were like a hundred little boxes of ashes.

“See, oh, distinguished audience, how extense was the evil done by this hag. Here are the remains of her many pitiful victims!”

“No, no, no! I don’t need this!” muttered Dad. And he turned to me and said, “Call your uncle this minute. We´ve a job for a Chinaman here. I’m leaving. I don’t want to have anything to do with this. This is for people who like to work.”

“What if these aren’t real? They could have put them there for the show.”

“You think these two capable of taking all that trouble?”

And I drew out my crystal ball and called Uncle Gen.