The King of the Hummingbirds Read Free Page A

Islamic?”
    â€œI didn’t notice,” said the witch, glancing about her in confusion.
    â€œYou didn’t notice!” the queen of the witches exclaimed. She bit her lips and squinted, calming herself. Gently she prodded, “Was it a Christ Brethren church, perhaps?” She leaned closer. “Was it a Russian Greek Friends’ church? A Hungarian Emmanuel Baptist church? Was it the African Methodist church?”
    â€œI don’t know! I didn’t pay attention!” cried the witch. “I had no idea it was important.”
    â€œIt makes all the difference in the world,” the queen said soberly, her eyes mere slits. She studied a spider’s web she’d been working on all day, for in the daytime the queen of the witches was a spider. “I’ve been converted sixty-seven times, myself,” said the queen. “I must say, it never made me want to stop being a witch. In fact, rather the opposite. I suppose it hits some people differently from the way it hits others.” Then she drew up a great plush chair which had a canopy over it like a four-poster bed and heavy side curtains of wine-black velvet, and sat down beside her visitor. “Well, well, well,” she said, “so you want to stop being a witch!” She frowned, weighing the matter. Then she shook her head and reached out absently to stir the brew in the cauldron. Small, grotesque creatures of a kind not normally seen in the world were jumping around in it, happy as lizards, for broiling heat was their element. “Really, you know, it’s impossible,” said the queen of the witches. “If I did know a way out, how could I in good conscience tell you? Think of the confusion if Satanists should turn ecumenical!”
    They sat in silence for a time, gazing without interest at the two skeletons seated on the chesterfield reading through the evening news.

    Then the witch said tentatively, “I did wish I might sell paper flowers and give my money to the poor.”
    â€œIt would be a pleasant life, all right,” said the queen with a sigh. “I’ve thought of it myself. Still, you must look at it this way: we witches have our pleasures too. Can sweet old ladies put hexes on television aerials so that people’s pictures come in sideways? Can sweet old ladies put tree toads in candy machines so that the kid puts in his fifteen cents and— Yipes!!? Or put cats in front of blind men’s seeing-eye dogs, heh heh? Or put wads of gum on the bottoms of bankers’ canes?”
    â€œAll that’s very pleasant, I’ll admit,” said the witch, and couldn’t help but smile, “but it’s nothing compared to stretching out a helping hand to the sick and needy, or giving money to the poor.”
    â€œPerhaps not,” said the queen of witches irritably, for her visitor had her and she knew it, “but you can’t have everything. Anyway, you can’t stop being a witch just because you want to. It’s against the rules, like trying to stop being a Mormon.”
    â€œI was afraid you’d say that,” said the witch. “I suppose I’ll just have to go on burning down synagogues and churches. But my heart won’t be in it.” So saying, she got up to leave.
    â€œMy dear,” said the queen as the witch was about to go, “if I were you I’d take the shortcut home.” She smiled slyly and gave her friend a wink.
    â€œWhatever you think best,” said the witch, rather puzzled, and she left.
    As the witch was walking home through the forest, taking the shortcut as the queen had suggested, she came to a great, dark pool. The water in the pool lay perfectly still, covered over with dark green like a great, slimy carpet, and you would have thought nothing had stirred the surface of that pool for a hundred years. All around the pool there were gnarled old roots and dreadful looking flowers that mysteriously glowed