Lord Gauche the Novel: Chapter 1. Witch’s Highway

"I wanna sit by the window!" shouted Tommie as he pulled his twin sister's hair.

Elsie let out a loud shriek. "Brookline, help me!" she yelled. "I'm being attacked by this stupid gorilla again!"

The children were riding in the back seat of an automobile. Tommie was seated between the two girls. He wanted to sit by a window to watch the passing scenery, but neither of the girls would give up their seats. Brookline, 15 and the older of the three, was tired and drowsy. She did not feel like joining in the tussle. The two, noisy, restless 10 year olds poked, pinched, and hit each other. This behavior went on since the start of the trip.

Miss. Sparks and the children had been riding for a very very long time. Their automobile was a cramp, box-shaped contraption on three wheels. It was old and a bit broken down. It chugged and rattled as it moved along. The seats within the automobile were hard, splintered, wooden planks that made the riders bounce on every bump and pothole the automobile road over. The children's bottoms went numb after a few hours, but Miss. Sparks sat on a cushion as she drove which gave her some comfort. It was very hot inside the automobile, like an oven. Although all the windows were rolled down there was no relief because the air outside was just as hot and as dry as it was inside. The wind that blow was arid. The woman and children felt very uncomfortable. They were hot, sweaty, sticky, and in bad humor.

Miss. Sparks, a children's aid worker, sighed tiredly as she listened to the noisy twins. The young woman was slender and average looking with tawny brown neck length hair and emerald green eyes. After having difficulty in finding employment she had recently gotten a job working for The Department of Children's Welfare. Being a children's aid worker was a lot of work and paid a low salary, but it was a job, and jobs were hard to come by. She was glad she did not have to spend money on clothes. All workers had to wear uniforms, which were quite plain.

Because Miss. Sparks was a junior worker, her job was to do "field work", which consisted of performing in-house evaluations and transporting children to new homes. On some days she was assigned to "children patrol", cruising roads and streets in a big van with barred windows, searching for abandon children to collect off the streets. Being a junior worker was very tiring, and at the end of every day her head ached. No matter how poor, ragged, and pitiful the children were, they were always so unruly and disrespectful. They could never be quiet for a second, they made messes in her automobile, and they called her bad names. Miss. Sparks looked forward to the day she would be promoted to a senior position so she would not have any contact with children.

Miss. Sparks rolled her eyes up to view the twins through the overhead mirror. Tiredly she let out another annoyed sigh. "I'm beginning to really dislike children," she thought to herself. To Elsie and Tommie she yelled, "Will you please shut up!"

"You shut up, old hag!" Tommie yelled back. His sister stuck her tongue out at the woman.

After driving for a while the young woman realized that the scenery was different from what it should have been. It was a complete barren wasteland. There was not a single sign of life anywhere. Miss. Sparks had traveled that way many times, but it was nothing like what she saw around her. She consulted her road map, and found that she had turned off the road she was following too early and was traveling Witch's Highway. The young woman immediately became tense. She slapped her forehead and cursed under her breath. How could she be so stupid!

Witch's Highway was a road traveled by witches. It was a long highway that led to some town where only witches lived. Ordinary people who wondered onto the road were never seen nor heard from again. It was believed that these unfortunate souls were captured by witches, who did unspeakable things to them.

A chill went up Miss. Sparks' spine as she gazed at her surroundings. She desperately hoped she would not come across any witches. She was afraid of them. Her parents ran a magic shop, where they sold all sort of sorcery books, and magical items, although they did not practice the dark arts. When she was a child, her mother fell seriously ill. She had to often mind the store alone so her father could care for her mother. All sorts of witches and wizards came to the shop to buy stuff for their spells. They all had grim, long faces that looked as though they were cut from stone, and cold emotionless eyes. They always wore long, dark clothes. The witches wore pointed hats, and the wizards wore pointed hoods. Sometimes they came in completely draped from head to toe in a black shroud. As customers they were hard to please and were easily agitated. She often had nightmares of them. As soon as she became an adult she left home and searched for a job where she would not have anything to do with witches nor wizards. As much as she disliked children, she would rather deal with them any day instead of waiting on witches and wizards.

"MISS. SPARKS! LOOK OUT!" Tommie, Elsie, and Brookline suddenly shouted together, awakening the woman from her deep thought.

Ahead of them was an oddly shaped, roofless automobile speeding towards them. It zig-zagged left to right going from lane to lane. Miss. Sparks quickly drove off the road to let it pass. The automobile was driven by a witch wearing a brown hat with two points on her head and a pair of goggles over her eyes. Huddled in the back seat were two little girls wearing little pointed hats. The little girls looked as if they had seen a fright. They cried and trembled like scared kittens.

"TURN AROUND!" the witch shouted as she sped pass them. She waved her arm wildly in the air. "DON'T GO THAT WAY! TURN AROUND!" The witch and her children were gone as soon as they came. Looking back, all the children and Miss. Sparks saw of them was a cloud of dust.

"Sheesh....someone's in a hurry!" said Miss. Sparks, returning to the road.

"Was she trying to warn us about something?" Elsie wondered.

"Humph...crazy witch!" Miss. Sparks scorned. "She was just trying to trick us. That's what they do." Glad the witch was gone she continued driving, but she was disturbed again, by the children this time.

"Miss. Sparks, I gotta pee," Tommie announced.

"I've gotta pee too," said Elsie.

"Me too," said Brookline.

The woman sighed and stopped along the side of the road again. The children hurried out and ran into the remnants of a cornfield to relieve themselves. Miss. Sparks decided to take a potty break too. Everyone ran in different directions. Elsie and Brookline went in one direction, Tommie ran in the opposite direction, and Miss. Sparks made sure to stay far away from all three.

After the potty break, the travel party continued. They drove and drove for hours and hours and did not come to the road for which Miss. Sparks was searching. Miss. Sparks hoped they would find the road before coming to the rumored town where witch's dwelled. The twins were silent during the time, but being hungry and thirsty, they soon grew restless again. Feeling bored Elsie began kicking the back of the woman's seat just to annoy her.

"We're lost, aren't we?" the girl asked in a taunting voice.

Miss. Sparks scratched her head stupidly. "Well...yes...no...not quite..." replied she.

"What a dummy," said Tommie. He gave the woman's seat one good hard kick.

Miss. Sparks felt completely helpless. The map she consulted was no help. She wished someone who was not a witch would come along to give her directions. Soon an automobile came into view. It was coming in their direction, driving normally in the next lane. It was a peculiar looking contraption that resembled a dune buggy with four big wheels. It was shaded by a big tasseled fringed canopy. A young witch drove it. She wore a long leather coat in spite of the heat and a tall pointed purple hat. A pair of goggles covered her eyes. Piled up on the seat behind her were suitcases, trunks, and a birdcage containing a black bat. The pointed hat worn by the witch had a face and a pair of arms and hands. It held a road map in its hands, reading it. As the witch passed, her hat rolled its eyes to look over at the automobile.

Brookline, Elsie, and Tommie pressed their faces against the window, curiously staring at the traveling witch, her hat, her bat, and her dune buggy. Miss. Sparks kept her eyes focused straight ahead. When the witch was gone, she pulled the visor of her cap down over her brow and sighed in relief. Seeing another witch brought back childhood memories that she did not want to recall.

She so badly wanted to leave the highway; however, bad luck seemed to have made her his companion for the day. The engine had over heated and began to smoke, forcing her to pull over to the side of the road. She and the children hurried out the automobile to check the engine. She discovered that it needed water. Fortunately she carried a tank of water as well as a tank of gas for such emergencies. Before she poured in more water, she had to let the engine cool down. She wished it would cool in an instant because being on the highway made her feel very uncomfortable.

Up the road a ways was a beat up, old wagon pulled by a bony mule. The wagon and mule belonged to an old woman who was gathering rubbish off the road. The back of the wagon was piled up with all sort of junk and trash. She carefully put the trash she collected off the road on the pile of stuff on the wagon. When the old woman spotted Miss. Sparks and the children, she hobbled to them. Miss. Sparks cringed when she saw the woman coming. She could instantly tell she was a witch in her. faded, dusty, black dress with patches, red stockings with runs, and worn out shoes. Her face was thin, wrinkled, and dotted with brown spots. Bushy gray hairs grew out of her chin. On her head she wore an old fashion black bonnet instead of a pointed black hat. On all ten of her snarled fingers were various rings inset with precious stones, and broaches of all shapes and sizes were pinned all over the front of her dress. Around her neck were chains holding a lot more rings.

With a wide toothless grin the old witch stood watching Miss. Sparks and children. Mss. Sparks ignored her as she lift the hood of the automobile to pour water in the engine. Brookline, Elsie, and Tommie curiously stared at the old woman with wide, open eyes.

"Magic rings for sell. Magic rings for sell," the witch said in a crackling voice. "Would you like to buy a magic ring, miss?"

"No thank you," Miss. Sparks said abruptly. She waved her hand at the old woman as if to shoo away a stray cat. "Go away. Go away."

The witch turned to the children. "Magic ring. Would you young ones like a magic ring?" Tommie and Elsie backed away. They did not want to be close to the old woman because she was so ugly and dirty. Brookline however was interested. She wanted to buy a ring. They were gaudy cheap looking trinkets, the type of jewelry that girls her age like.

"How much does a ring cost?" Brookline asked.

"How much money do you have, my dear?" the witch inquired.

Brookline dug into her pocket and pulled out a tarnished silver coin, all the money she had in the world. "Just a dollar," she said. "Do you have a ring that only costs a dollar?"

"Ahh, I have just the ring for you, my dear," the witch said. She held out her left index finger which was adorned with three rings. "These are all one dollar specials. Pick one."

Brookline looked them over carefully and selected a gold ring inset with green stone. She thought it was very pretty. She gave the silver dollar to the witch who in turn gave her the ring. It was too large for all of Brookline's fingers but she put it on her right index finger anyway to see how it would look. Once it was on her finger it instantly shrunk to fit her finger perfectly. "What kind of magic ring is this?" she asked the witch, amazed.

"Oh, that one is a spacial ring," the old woman explained. "It uses wind magic. When the wind blows you'll be able to fly through the air just like a birdie."

Miss. Sparks listened as she watered the automobile. She thought witch and her magic rings were nothing but nonsense. When she finished, she slammed down the hood and ordered the children into the automobile. She was ready to go, but before leaving she decided to asked the witch directions to Clover Road, the road she wanted to get to.

"Clover Road," the old woman said thoughtfully and scratched her hairy chin. "You'll have to go through the land of Gauche to get there," said she slowly.

"I heard that there is a city of witches at the end of this highway," said Miss. Sparks. "How far away is it?" "You mean the City of Wallowish. It's further than Gauche," replied the woman. "You should continue to Wallowish. Clover Road runs through it. Gauche is a terrible place. Once you enter it you can't leave it. I heard it's ruled by a tyrannous old wizard who eats children, and witches aren't allowed there," she shook her head and said, "No. Gauche would not be a good place for you and the children."

"Have you ever been there?" Miss. Sparks asked, unconvinced.

"No," said the witch. Miss. Sparks climbed into her automobile without saying another word, and drove away quickly. She thought the witch was a foolish old woman, making up a tall tale about some Place called Gauche and a cannibal wizard. The old witch was just trying to trick them into going to the ill rumored town. Witches were tricky like that.

To read more go to:
Lord Gauche The Novel: Chapter 2. "The Land of Gauche"