(FICTION) (This is Part 4. Part 1 of this story can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, and Part 3 can be found here.)

The witch came out of the house carrying a legal pad and a pencil and stood in front of the family of snowmen.

“You want a story?” she asked the littlest one with the pink scarf. “I’ll give you a story.”

She glanced at the legal pad.

“There was a family of noisy neighbors who moved into a quiet neighborhood and made a lot of noise all summer. Check!” She put a checkmark on her legal pad.

“The family built a fire pit in the fall and sat around it being noisy every night in the fall. Check!” Again, she checked off the item on her pad.

“The family knocked on the door of a nice old lady one December evening with—”

“Sho it waszh premeditated,” the tallest snowman said out of the corner of his button mouth.

“Premeditated? Premeditated did you say?” asked the witch.

“Shhhh!” said the lady snowman standing closest to the small ones.

“Yesh,” said the tallest. “I shaid the drink you gave ush waszh made to turn ush into schowmen before we even knocked on the door!”

“Hmph,” said the witch and plucked out the rest of his buttons, leaving him mute but now staring wildly. She was going to leave it at that, but on second thought, she pulled out his carrot nose, took a bite out of it, and stuck it back in.

She stomped back over to the little one in the pink scarf. “How did you like that story?”

“I’d like it better if it had a happy ending,” the littlest snowman said.

“It does have a happy ending,” exclaimed the witch in triumph. She turned on her heel, pad and pencil in hand, to go back inside when the littlest snowman began to sing.

It just so happened to be a song the witch’s own mother sang to her when she was a child, and the little snowman sang it like an angel.

The witch stopped in her tracks. She turned slowly, and a single teardrop fell from her eye.

“You!” she said to the little snowman in pink. “I will set you free!”

“But, what about my family?” the little one asked. “How will I live and go to school and do all the things a girl is supposed to do without them?”

“Hmm…” the witch said. “Let me think about it.” And she went back inside.

(To be continued.)

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