In the moment that Daniel hesitated, Cocot jerked her head back, hitting the magician's nose. She jabbed her elbow in the magician's stomach and was free. She tore the gag from her mouth. "No, not him! I'll open it!" she promised the witch. "No agreement, I'll open it!"

"By all means," the witch replied.

Daniel stepped towards Cocot, uncertain of what was happening. Captain Thraidox took his arm.

"Let Daniel go first. I promise to open the fountain and to help you find the other bottles."

"I know you will. But you must hurry. Listen," the witch whispered. "Jean-Baptist arrives."

A hush fell over the tiny square as each creature strained to hear what the witch already noticed. Hard soled boots thumped on the street and the faint susurration of something being dragged came to their ears. Two steps, then shhhrk. Two steps, then shhhrk. Closer and closer.

"Keep him away," whispered Cocot, "and let Daniel go. I'm offering to help. I will do anything and everything you want."

"Quickly now, before he arrives!" the witch said.

"No, let her go. I agree, I'll stay and Cocot can go!" Daniel said.

"Agreed!"

"No, wait," shouted Cocot. She ran to the fountain and grabbed the basin wall. Water trickled into it from two spigots standing upright at the middle. A drain pipe let water out at a few inches from the top of the basin. She stared at the ridiculously normal, everyday design. This world of magic and evil was not hers. She was no magician, no powerful fairy. She didn't know what to do or where to start.

"Only a dozen feet away. Better hurry," called the witch.

"Tell me what to do, how to break the seal!"

"You have the fairy magic, your mother gave it to you, now speak the words!"

"But what words?" Cocot gasped. The footsteps were getting closer always followed by the shhh-shhh of something being pulled after them.

Daniel tried to yank his arm from the captain's grip. "Go, Cocot, get out of here!" He was gagged and thrown to the ground by several fairies.

"Quickly, Coquelicot, before I hold him to his agreement and change him. Before Jean-Baptist arrives!" the witch said.

Daniel kicked a fairy in the face, but two more held him down. His muffled shouts mixed with the footsteps getting closer. Cocot wrenched her eyes from him.

"Break then!" she shouted at the fountain. Nothing. "Open, for I mean no harm here. By my voice, by my heart, know me and—"

"Not those words," interrupted Soufflé. He landed on her shoulder and caught her hair. "Put your hands in the water at the bottom closer to the seal. Say anything to form your thoughts. Say, 'Seal set long ago, hear me and break apart, set free all below.' The stronger and the clearer the words, the better the call for your magic. Try."

She risked a quick glance at him. A trail of tears streaked down his whiskery chin.

Two hard-soled steps, then a sibilant swish. Right behind her. She plunged her hands in the icy water, all the way to her upper arms. "Evil below, hear me and come. Come." She spoke the words without even thinking, the change seemed right. It was not the seal she had control over; it was the evil itself. The witch had told her all it needed was for her to beckon.

Chill wind rushed around her—straight through her. At the bottom of the fountain a bulge formed. It bubbled up near the center, and yet the fountain was still perfectly normal and intact. To Cocot, it was like looking at two pictures at the same time, one real and one dreamed.

Something cruel and dark shook itself awake below Cocot's feet.

"I don't know if it worked..." she said, not sure if the seal would break or not.

"Change him," the witch said, giving the glass bottle top to the captain.

"No!"

Spitting, laughing fairies surrounded Daniel, holding him immobile.

"No, give it time, it's working!" Cocot screamed.

"As per my agreement with the boy, no living creature here will harm you if you choose to go," the witch informed her.

In the middle of the group, Daniel breathed in the cloud of evil wafting up to his nose. With no other warning, he arched his back so far he was supported only by his head and heels.

"The noise," the witch snapped at the magician. "The humans will hear!"

The magician reached both hands above her head and brought them swiftly parallel to the ground as if pulling something down.

Daniel began to scream through his gag, but there was no sound. He writhed and changed in horrible silence. The fairies drew back to watch. They watched as he grew pale and stopped screaming, but still shook with pain. He arched backwards again, and then froze, noticing the moon and stars above.

His hands went for his eyes. Choking and straining, he tore at his own eyes. Cocot dashed forward. She grabbed his hands, begging him to stop, but he was out of his mind.

What he loved most was the sight of the stars and what they meant; he would rather blind himself than see them.

Someone caught her around the wrist and dragged her away. Deathly cold pierced her chest and burned her lungs. She clawed at the creature who had her, but no one was there The scent of wet saw dust and dank earth surrounded her and she knew who it was.

The witch clapped her hands together. "If only Farafell would come and see the two of you!"

Cocot kicked and hit at the unseen ghost of Jean-Baptist, but touched only a cold miasma in the air. "Let go! Let me go!" A spell, she should try a spell, but couldn't think of any words. The cold was suffocating.

"Bind the boy's hands, I want him to be able to see. Jean-Baptist, she has asked for you to let her go," the witch said.

She was jerked downwards by her arms until she seemed to hit a wooden box. At the same time, there was nothing. She was part of two worlds. She pushed against the invisible box. Jean-Baptist's coffin? A voice rasped in her ear. At first, she didn't understand. Then the words became clear.

"The darkness is endless. The pain is endless. Open the...door."

The hold on her arms released, and she struggled to stand. A hard slap to her cheek sent her sprawling to the fountain. She used the basin to pull herself up. Her foot was jerked aside and she nearly fell headfirst into the water. Jean-Baptist was toying with her. She gasped for breath.

Head nearly in the water, she saw the pale wisps rising up from the tiny crack in the shadowed basin. The distortion in the fabric of everyday life was gone and in its place was a hole as black and deep as Hector's eyes when he had hunted her in the forest. From it, the evil was floating up into the water. Like a distant mist or smoke from an extinguished candle or something beautiful that she could take for herself and use to punish the creatures tormenting her.

It would listen if she called. It was waiting to be called—its emptiness and need consuming it always. She would make these creatures beg for mercy and then she would give them none.

Cocot placed her hand on the water's surface. She would pull up the evil and use it for herself.

Out in the square, the witch ordered Daniel to his feet so Cocot could see the ruin he'd made of his face. His nails had left bleeding marks from his forehead to his cheeks. He was sweating and seemed confused. He saw Cocot across the basin and he shook violently, enraged and gnawed at the gag across his mouth.

Though he was the same size, he seemed larger. He resembled the older boys who had been at the picnic—except for his expression. Where they had been dim-witted and brutish, Daniel's face was cunning, vicious. His anger marred his features as much as the gashes.

She thought nothing would cause more heartbreak than Hector's death. She had been wrong. Her soul cracked like spring snapped the ice.

The same evil that infected the creatures changed them in different ways. The fairies were hideous, grey and gaunt with demon teeth and nails, the witch was fair of face and full of power, and Hector...Hector had become a beast for hunting and killing. Daniel narrowed his eyes at her until his sneer was a perfect imitation of the old farmer's.

"The evil changes you into what you hate the most," Cocot said in sudden understanding. It changed you into what you hated and made you destroy what you loved.

The witch scoffed. "Then how do you explain that I am young and my strength has returned?"

"You must hate yourself this way."

"Truly, Coquelicot? Tell me honestly how you find your friend Daniel now. Is this how he hates himself? More confidence, stronger, a place by my side. Is it not an improvement over farmhand or factory worker?" the witch asked.

"He would be more than that."

"He will never be anything at all. He said it, himself," the witch said.

With a last look at the brambles lying scattered on the ground, Cocot plunged one hand in the basin.

If Cocot had burned with rage at the death of her horse, she was white steel in the forge at what the witch had done to Daniel. Cocot's hand hovered over the water's surface. She would summon the evil, she would become what she hated and destroy what she loved in order to destroy the witch.

*** Cocot has made her choice. ***