What exactly does one do to prepare themselves to meet a witch? Assuming, of course, that Antony's mad tale was true. Normally I'm inclined to scoff at such notions, but there was no doubt something strange was afoot. Not to mention the first reference I'd heard to this witch character came not from Antony, but from my long-dead, recently revived parrot Chaucer. It certainly seemed plausible there could be a witch roaming around here.

And on top of all of this, I couldn't help but keep my mind from wandering back to my novel. Maybe this was the answer to how I should start things off. Perhaps there was witchcraft involved, and that was what caused my unfortunate scoop of ice cream to fall to the ground. Perhaps if I added a couple hundred pages to the beginning I could include some sort of backstory for this witch. Maybe she became traumatized by sweets after hearing what happened to the witch in Hansel and Gretel and developed a vendetta against sugary treats which she took out on my ice cream protagonist. Of course, the witch would have to be written out of the story early on. I couldn't have her distracting from the main thrust of my story, which was one hundred percent ice cream centric. But if I included just enough, perhaps I could market it as a supernatural horror story of the occult and reach a new, lucrative demographic. I would certainly have to consider this.

"You own any guns, bro?" Antony asked.

I couldn't help but sneer involuntarily. "Please, I am a man of words, not violence. My typewriter and my mind are my weapons. I loathe firearms with every fiber of my being."

"Yeah, well, I don't think your typewriter is going to be much protection against a freaky witch. I'd prefer to be packing some heat when I face that demon hellspawn again. Luckily I've got a huge collection of guns back at the house. Let's arm ourselves to the teeth."

"Do you think guns would even have any effect against a being such as that? Perhaps we should erect a stake where we might burn her. I believe that is the traditional way of dealing with witches."

"Yeah, but how are we going to fasten her to the stake?" Antony challenged me. "It's not like she's going to voluntarily tie herself up. We're going to have to force her. And if guns aren't going to work, maybe we'd better be on the lookout for some sort of magical artifacts or something? You know, fight fire with fire, so to speak?"

"Hmm, or maybe water," I said. "Do you suppose there's any truth to the story of the Wizard of Oz? In the end they defeated the wicked witch by dowsing her with water."

"I don't know," Antony shook his head. "You didn't see this thing. She was terrifying. I don't think something like water is going to put a stop to her."

"Probably not," I shrugged. "Besides, apparently she inhabits some sort of misty woods and from what I understand, mist is generally composed of water droplets. She didn't melt when you saw her in the midst of it before, so it's a fairly safe bet water is harmless to her." I stopped and smiled for a second. "She was in the midst of the mist. That's got a nice ring to it. I'll have to write it down. Perhaps it could be the opening line of my novel!"

"Novel? Who the hell's going to read your novel?" Antony said. "And how are you going to write it in the first place if you get killed by a witch? No, I think we're losing focus on something important here."

"Oh you do, do you?" I rolled my eyes. It figured a philistine like this would have no interest in novels. I, for one, couldn't imagine what could possibly be more important than a great work of literature.

"Yeah. We still don't know what happened to everyone. The Witch of the Misty Woods isn't supposed to collect on her debt until tonight."

"Yeah, so?"

"So if she's the cause of this, she struck a little early. I guess that's possible, but we still don't know what she or someone else did. The question remains, what happened in September?"

I didn't have an answer to that. But it turned out someone else did.

"Awk!" Chaucer squawked. "I know what happened in September."

Antony and I both looked at the parrot expectantly.

"Awk! In September, the world came to a horrible end and the light inside everything went out."